


Safe in My Arms, You're Only Sleeping

by unorigelnal (jayburding)



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Child Death, Dark, Infanticide, Murder, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:16:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayburding/pseuds/unorigelnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deanon from the kinkmeme. Short fill for the prompt: <i>Thor and Co break into Loki's lair after a suspiciously long absence. They find him with a crazed look in his eyes and the newborn baby that he smothered with his own hands, because he decided a quick death would be a kinder faith than whatever Asgard might have in store for it.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Takes place after all the times Odin and co have fucked over his kids.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe in My Arms, You're Only Sleeping

He hushes them and rocks them and sings nonsense lullabies in shards of Alltongue welded together, the seams glaring like the hitches in his voice.

He can’t keep them warm. They lie against his chest like little chips of ice.

“Father.”

His ageless skin stands the test of her kiss on his forehead. She disturbs her brothers with a caress that traces frost across their fur. They do not stir.

“What are their names?”

He whispers them to her, a breath against her ear.

“Narfi. Váli.” She repeats softly, savouring the sound.

“Hello, little brothers.”

Mist curls around their knees. She must have brought it with her. Beyond the refuge of the nursery, a thunder of footsteps threatens to cut their time short.

She touches his hands, fingers trailing blue across his skin.

“They’re safe, Father. You can let go now.”

He doesn’t want to, and she knows it, coaxing his frozen hands open with gentle touches and gentler words. She cradles her tiny brothers against her chest- and they are tiny; nowhere near as robust as Fenrir was- soothing their misty, translucent forms with a reverent touch. He knows his little girl would never treat her brothers any less, but he fears, oh he fears.

“They’re safe,” she repeats. “We’re safe.”

Thunder at the door. It won’t hold.

She wants to say “Come with me” but she can’t. Instead she smiles in that wistful way she never learned from him, and bends to kiss his forehead. 

She’s gone when the door bursts open. The bloom of her touch burns from his skin. He’s white again.

“Too late,” he growls at the menagerie blocking his doorway, a smear of wide eyes and harsh mouths. “You can’t have them.”

Only Thor dares to approach him. Loki scrambles away from his brother until his back hits the wall, but still Thor approaches, dropping to his knees before Loki as if to pledge fealty. His crimson cape pools around him.

The tiny scraps of fur in Loki’s arms are hollow with cold. Thor reaches out but falters before he touches them.

“Loki...” Thor whispers, the softest he’s ever heard his brother speak. “What have you done?”

“I couldn’t protect them,” and a little more of his heart chips away with that admission, “but she can. Not even Odin can reach them where she’s taken them.”

“They’re safe,” he insists, but his victory is in tatters and the long held tears drip down his face to wet his sons’ fur. They’re not here because Hel has taken them where they’re all safe, and he knows that, but still he clutches them to him as if desperation alone could warm them.

“You can’t have them,” but Thor hasn’t even tried to take them, just stares on and on until they feel like lead in his arms. “They’re safe.”

Thor’s comrades crowd by the door and don’t understand.

**Author's Note:**

> Safe in My Arms now has a sequel, over here: [You Have Come to Journey's End](http://archiveofourown.org/works/402802)


End file.
